Proof That Pepper Potts Has Tony Stark's Heart
by The Smoose
Summary: She was having a really shitty day. REALLY shitty.


Just a little thing that popped into my head whilst watching Samantha Who the other day. Plus, the quote I found rocks my socks off.

* * *

Pepper had been having a bad day. Actually, bad didn't do it justice. Bad would have been excellent. Today was just...there wasn't even a word to describe it. First, her alarm had gone off late, she still couldn't figure out why, and Tony had spent the better part of twenty minutes trying to coax her back into bed, telling her to blow off the day. When she had finally gotten ready and out of the house, her heel had snapped, so she had to turn around and get a new pair.

Then her car wouldn't start. When she asked to borrow one of Tony's, he immediately went back into bed coaxing mode and refused to tell her where the keys were. Thankfully, Jarvis took her side and directed her to where they were stashed in a draw in the workshop. She was in such a hurry that she nearly took the top of the car off with the garage door, not waiting for it to open properly.

And then, of course, traffic was a nightmare. The entire PCH was gridlocked, which added another half an hour to her journey. She finally arrived at the office nearly two hours late, to be told that a meeting had been pushed forwards an hour and the liaison for a newly contracted technology company was waiting for her in her office. The company liaison, it turned out, really was the biggest Douchebag in the world. Pepper expected he even had some sort of trophy for it at home. Throughout the hour long meeting, he mentioned no less than sixteen times that he'd been kept waiting and that he had 'extremely important business' to be getting on with, which was probably buffing and polishing the aforementioned trophy. The meeting turned out to be a colossal waste of time on both parts, mainly because the guy was _such_ an ass and wouldn't compromise on anything. When Lord of the Douches finally left, she started to get on with her real work, only to be told that three of the other people in the office had called in sick with food poisoning.

Throughout the day, she attempted to do five people's work (because Tony hadn't shown up either, not that this was anything new). She took a well deserved ten minute break to grab a coffee, which then turned into a ten minute try-and-get-coffee-out-of-my-silk-blouse fiasco, and then it seemed every single printer in the entire building malfunctioned at once, meaning she couldn't retrieve and of the documents she needed Tony to sign when she got back to his house. Not that he'd sign them when she handed them over, but still.

When she finally got out of the office, skipping out early before she eviscerated someone, she was relieved to find that the morning's traffic jam had disappeared. That is until the front left tyre blew and she nearly caused a new one. Thankfully, she managed to safely pull to the side of the road and hopped out to inspect the damage. She knew how to change a tyre, so she popped the trunk and rooted around. Jack, check. Tyre wrench, check. Spare tyre...nope, guess again.

The recovery service took forty-five minutes to turn up due to the fact that the nine-to-fivers had just started clogging up the roads. They changed her tyre after an extremely condescending look and sent her back on her way. Early as she had left work, she didn't actually make it back to Tony's until twenty minutes _after_ she usually did. She parked in the garage, expecting to see Tony down there, but all the main lights were off, only the dimmers gave her any indication of where she was. She got out of the car and looked around.

"I swear to God, if he's gone out on a mission and not told me..." she couldn't see any sign of such activity, and the lights still hadn't come on. "Jarvis, where's Tony? And can I get some illumination in here?" she walked over to where she could just about make out the door up to the main house but stopped when Jarvis didn't reply.

"Jarvis?" she glanced up at the ceiling, as if expecting to see someone to talk to there. Nothing. Fear started creeping its way up Pepper's back. "Jarvis, protocol 8-15, Virginia Anne Potts, what's going on?" she tried using the code Tony had told her to use if Jarvis ever needed re-starting, but nothing happened. Pepper sped over to the door and punched in her code, wondering why that was still working if Jarvis was offline, and took the stairs two at a time.

"Tony?" she called as she reached the top of the staircase. The rest of the house was dark as well. Tony was nowhere to be found. She ran to the kitchen. Nothing. The gym. Nothing. She even tried the pool house, but no dice. She was getting really worried now. Finally, she sprinted up the stairs to the first floor and flew into his bedroom.

"Finally, I thought you'd never get here." He chuckled slightly and beamed at her. He was dressed in a black dress shirt and black jeans, and his hair was doing that 'yeah, I just got out of bed, but God damn I look good' thing. She glanced quickly around the room, trying to gather her thoughts. Every single surface in the room was covered in lit candles, giving off a mysteriously eerie yet calm glow. "I turned Jarvis off so he wouldn't interrupt-"

"Tony, _what the hell_!" she whispered/shouted. "You had me worried sick! I was thinking all kinds of things! This has just taken the biscuit, today has been shitty and then you go and pull a stunt like this for when I get home? I mean you could have told me you were going to turn Jarvis off for...wait, why did you turn him off again?" her brain was just catching up with what Tony had said. His smile widened, not put off by her explosion, and he stepped forwards.

"Remember when you mounted the first Arc Reactor on that podium thing and gave it to me as a present?" she nodded. "Well, it saved my life. Not only that, but it opened my eyes." He dug around in his left pants pocket for a second and then leant forwards and captured her lips with his own.

"Tony, wha-" her eyes grew wide as he sank down onto one knew and brandished a small square box at her.

"You gave me proof once that I have a heart," he continued, "now I'm giving you proof that it's yours." He cracked the box open to reveal the ring inside.

Clouds really do have a silver lining.


End file.
